Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Artemis II is competency porn

lizplank.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 96 posts

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#61

Post by dextrous »

Chance-Device wrote: post #32

I haven’t paid any attention to the mission, and there’s something about the framing of this article that I don’t like, as if it’s talking about a soap opera or reality TV or something. It just rubs me up the wrong way.

I agree. Even though I thought this mission was interesting, to me the article massively overstates everything. NASA and the crew is SO amazingly competent, the world in recent years is SO totally devoid of competency, everyone has been thirsting for the sense of AWE that we are ALL feeling (or should be feeling now, let me list the reasons!), etc.

To me, this was irritating. True competency and things that inspire real awe encapsulate “res ipsa loquitur” — they speak for themselves. Having some internet influencer try to hype me into getting awed, and implying that “we all” are feeling a certain way as she channels our collective zeitgeist is tiresome.

And personally, IMO although the mission was nice, it wasn’t groundbreaking technically or particularly awe-inspiring.

Ironically, I left feeling a tiny bit disappointed: if everyone is truly thinking this mission is the height of awesomeness or competency, we have a low-ish bar.

I bet that when the old-timers with their starched white shirts, pocket protectors, and horn-rimmed glasses that did the 60s missions got together to watch 2026 Artemis they privately had a good laugh about how little state-of-the-art has progressed.

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#62

Post by prewett »

mrtksn wrote: post #57
wookmaster wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Even the photos are not that much better so far" We have an incredible eclipse photos with multiple planets in the background. If you don't find photos like that incredible to see I'd guess you need to do some soul searching.

They are impressive photos, the earthrise is my background on my phone and the eclipse is my background on my laptop but they are derivatives of what we had before.

In the same way that Cassini was a derivative of Galileo, but around Saturn and with a working antenna. Or Perseverence is a derivative of Curiosity, which is a derivative of Opportunity. Or philosophy is just footnotes on Plato. Or classical music is everyone trying to escape from the shadow of Bach. Or fantasy is just a poorer version of Tolkien.

I suppose there's truth to that, but it unfairly and unhelpful minimizes the accomplishment, and it collapses the awe that the article talks about. If you are viewing the photos as essentially the same, you are shortchanging yourself, because Artemis was not a means for producing photos, those are more like artifacts of production. Again, that would collapse the awe of Artemis.

(Also, technically, I don't think that Artemis is a derivative of Apollo, more like a re-implementation from scratch.)

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#63

Post by verdverm »

thomasdziedzic wrote: post #60
jFriedensreich wrote: post #49

As a german, seeing you go to the moon under trump feels like celebrating the olympics in the dawn of the german reich, it cannot be taken for what it is. It does not matter what we feel, what we want to feel, we can enjoy it for a second and then swallow it down and not write an article like that.

> under trump feels like celebrating the olympics in the dawn of the german reich Godwin's law... > it cannot be taken for what it is. It does not matter what we feel, what we want to feel, we can enjoy it for a second and then swallow it down and not write an article like that. As an American, I felt extremely proud seeing 4 astronauts (3 Americans, 1 Canadian) come back after 10 days in space and the amount of coor…

As an American, I don't understand why we need to waste money to be on the moon. There are better things we could be doing, regardless of politics.

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#64

Post by slumberlust »

verdverm wrote: post #63
thomasdziedzic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> under trump feels like celebrating the olympics in the dawn of the german reich Godwin's law... > it cannot be taken for what it is. It does not matter what we feel, what we want to feel, we can enjoy it for a second and then swallow it down and not write an article like that. As an American, I felt extremely proud seeing 4 astronauts (3 Americans, 1 Canadian) come back after 10 days in space and the amount of coor…

As an American, I don't understand why we need to waste money to be on the moon. There are better things we could be doing, regardless of politics.

There's no guarantee that money wouldn't just be allocated to the dod.

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#65

Post by mrtksn »

prewett wrote: post #62
mrtksn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are impressive photos, the earthrise is my background on my phone and the eclipse is my background on my laptop but they are derivatives of what we had before.

In the same way that Cassini was a derivative of Galileo, but around Saturn and with a working antenna. Or Perseverence is a derivative of Curiosity, which is a derivative of Opportunity. Or philosophy is just footnotes on Plato. Or classical music is everyone trying to escape from the shadow of Bach. Or fantasy is just a poorer version of Tolkien. I suppose there's truth to that, but it unfairly and unhelpful minimi…

They are not essentially the same, just not as big deal as the first ones.

Armstrong is the only cooler astronaut than Gagarin even though other astronauts technically achieved much more than Gagarin. Even Gene Cernan isn’t as cool as Gagarin despite spending more than 3 days on the surface of the moon and probably doing much more things outside of the earth than anyone. He’s cool in other ways of course.

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#66

Post by thomasdziedzic »

verdverm wrote: post #63
thomasdziedzic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> under trump feels like celebrating the olympics in the dawn of the german reich Godwin's law... > it cannot be taken for what it is. It does not matter what we feel, what we want to feel, we can enjoy it for a second and then swallow it down and not write an article like that. As an American, I felt extremely proud seeing 4 astronauts (3 Americans, 1 Canadian) come back after 10 days in space and the amount of coor…

As an American, I don't understand why we need to waste money to be on the moon. There are better things we could be doing, regardless of politics.

> I don't understand why

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis/

tldr: for science and a stepping stone towards a crewed mission to Mars

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#67

Post by rbanffy »

gaigalas wrote: post #59
rbanffy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can carry an Orion capsule to a suborbital trajectory and achieve the same reentry speeds the capsule experiences returning from the Moon. The trick is doing a second burn pointing down. If you don't use an actual Orion but just a mass simulator, you can even do some very off-nominal reentries to test limits. There is ample delta-v for that.

Can you elaborate more on that? I don't understand how the coupling between Orion and Falcon Heavy would be done (can't just put it inside the fairing). I also don't understand how you plan to re-light the engines on the 3 falcon cores for a second burn (required for the delta-v you propose) and the fuel economics. I also don't understand the trajectory you envision. Even if you could re-light the FH engines and coup…

> I don't understand how the coupling between Orion and Falcon Heavy would be done (can't just put it inside the fairing).

A mechanical coupling is not that difficult to design. There needs to be no communication between FH and Orion for this use case. It could be mounted with the shield on top to simplify the mechanism. Separation could be purely mechanical, with springs.

> I also don't understand how you plan to re-light the engines on the 3 falcon cores for a second burn (required for the delta-v you propose) and the fuel economics.

Reignite only the second stage. Instead of putting the payload in orbit, put it on a suborbital trajectory with a high apogee, then boost down to hit the atmosphere at the desired speed and angle.

> I also don't understand the trajectory you envision. Even if you could re-light the FH engines and couple Orion to it, I don't understand how you would get the re-entry angle correct.

You have the delta-v - just use it in the right orientation. An Orion is lighter than the payload to LEO of the FH, so there will be a lot of propellant for the boost up and the boost down.

> Regarding the mass simulator, it's not clear by your description how the shields would be tested in that scenario.

The shield doesn't care what's inside the Orion - it cares about mass. You might need some attitude control (you can use flywheels) and parachutes if you want to recover anything, but all the rest is optional.

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#68

Post by rbanffy »

PaulHoule wrote: post #25
rbanffy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might have found a way of having two versions of Outlook and at least one of them working. A lot of it is relearning what was forgotten after the Apollo and shuttle programs. The technologies changed so much it’s a whole new spacecraft that looks like what existed only because that’s the best possible shape.

If I am not careful I wind up with two Outlooks running in my computer. ‘Classic’ is fine, but God forbid I start the other one because when I try to send an email with it is spinner… spinner… spinner… spinner… spinner…

I actually like the new one better, but that's not saying I like either.

I would just love if my workplace let me use the normal Apple apps, but there are regulatory constrains Apple tools don't meet (such as spying on me to prevent data exfil)

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#69

Post by enoint »

verdverm wrote: post #63
thomasdziedzic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> under trump feels like celebrating the olympics in the dawn of the german reich Godwin's law... > it cannot be taken for what it is. It does not matter what we feel, what we want to feel, we can enjoy it for a second and then swallow it down and not write an article like that. As an American, I felt extremely proud seeing 4 astronauts (3 Americans, 1 Canadian) come back after 10 days in space and the amount of coor…

As an American, I don't understand why we need to waste money to be on the moon. There are better things we could be doing, regardless of politics.

Would you say the same about Dogecoin? It’s current market cap would run NASA for 9 months.

Re: Artemis II is competency porn

#70

Post by mcphage »

verdverm wrote: post #63
thomasdziedzic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> under trump feels like celebrating the olympics in the dawn of the german reich Godwin's law... > it cannot be taken for what it is. It does not matter what we feel, what we want to feel, we can enjoy it for a second and then swallow it down and not write an article like that. As an American, I felt extremely proud seeing 4 astronauts (3 Americans, 1 Canadian) come back after 10 days in space and the amount of coor…

As an American, I don't understand why we need to waste money to be on the moon. There are better things we could be doing, regardless of politics.

I would check your assumption that the money spent going to the moon is wasted—if for nothing else (and there is a lot else), we have stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
Post reply on HN